Contact lenses have been used commercially to improve vision since the 1950s. The first contact lenses were made of hard materials. Although these lenses are currently used, they are not suitable for all patients due to their poor initial comfort. Later developments in the field gave rise to soft contact lenses, based upon hydrogels, which are extremely popular today. These lenses have higher oxygen permeabilities and such are often more comfortable to wear than contact lenses made of hard materials. However, these new lenses are not without problems.
Contact lenses can be worn by many users for 8 hours to several days in a row without any adverse reactions such as redness, soreness, mucin buildup and symptoms of contact lens related dry eye. However, some users begin to develop these symptoms after only a few hours of use. Many of those contact lens wearers use rewetting solutions to alleviate discomfort associated with these adverse reactions with some success. However the use of these solutions require that users carry extra solutions and this can be inconvenient. For these users a more comfortable contact lens that does not require the use of rewetting solutions would be useful. Therefore there is a need for such contact lenses and methods of making such contact lenses. It is this need that is met by the following invention.